Mining News

More on Northern Promise

The Financial Post has another installment out in its “Northern Promise” series of articles examining development in some of
Canada’s more remote regions. Not surprisingly, a lot of those developments revolve around extractive industries for both petroleum
and minerals. In the newest installment by Nicolas Van Praet, the focus is on how
new mining projects are bringing major infrastructure development to distant Sept-Îles, a remote mining community in the gulf of the
St. Lawrence river, some 650 km downriver from Quebec City. As Van Praet documents, Sept-Îles is undergoing significant growth in
housing, jobs, hotels, rail transport, recreational areas, and more. And what’s “the catalyst for all this growth”?

A new multi-user wharf south across the Sept-Îles bay at Pointe Noire being built at a cost of $220-million. When
completed, the 450-metre-long dock will be able to accommodate up to 50 million tonnes of material a year carried by the largest
bulk carriers in the world — 350,000-tonne-and-up Chinamax ships. Another 50 million tonnes of capacity can be added by expanding
the dock facility later.

The article vividly illustrates how expanding mining operations has major knock-on effects for regional development in places
where poverty and joblessness still have a significant toe-hold:

Sept-Îles is already home to one of Canada’s largest trailer parks. Dubbed “Place Ferland,” the maze of 1,200 mobile
homes has three separate entrances off the highway. First-time home buyers for whom most houses are out of their price range
have gravitated there. But even these shelters have climbed in price to nearly $200,000 amid the recent housing
crunch.

The biggest challenge facing Sept-Îles will be managing growth:

The town now harbours a population of 26,000. The economic development department expects that to double by 2028
in the most optimistic scenario. During the next five years alone, it predicts 1,500 new households will join the assessment
rolls.